


Fall

by guttergod



Category: Oxenfree (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I think?, Step-siblings, Suicide Attempt, good brother jonas :), very angsty lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27026836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guttergod/pseuds/guttergod
Summary: Alex is tired.
Relationships: Alex & Jonas (Oxenfree)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 36





	Fall

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this in one go and it's midnight so sorry for mistakes. I just wanted to write some depressed Alex lol. I'm pretty sure this fandom is dead but I hope you enjoy anyway :)

Alex trudged along the path. How many times had she done this now? 20, 21, 26. Her 27th loop, maybe. On and on and on and on. She could never stop walking. No breaks, no sleep. No breather. No rest. Keep going, she’d tell herself. You’ll get it next time! Because there was a next time. And a time after that, and a time after that.  
She looked up as they entered the Bridge Stand. Jonas was saying something as he trailed behind her. Up ahead, the campgrounds, where the first loop would happen. Or maybe that had already happened? Alex rubbed her eyes. What was she doing? She was tired, so tired.  
  
The first time she’d won, she woke up on the boat, her friends beside her. She was going home. And she _made_ it home. But sometime, somewhere along the way, she’d ended up back on the ferry. Making her way to Edwards Island once again. At the time she didn’t realise she’d already done this. But she knew now. After about the third loop you get it. It stuck to her, the knowledge of what was happening. Glued itself to her skin. A loop. A big one. One that kept her going around in an endless quest to free herself. One where it didn’t matter what happened to her friends because they’d always end up right there beside her again. She’d tried. After a few loops. It made her feel sick, sent her retching over the side of the boat when she woke up and Clarissa was gone. When Clarissa had never existed in the first place. To… erase the very memory of a person, a real person with real thoughts and feelings, was something she couldn’t handle. Alex was almost begging for the loop to restart after that.  
  
Eventually, she got desensitised to it. She tried a few more times. Clarissa, like they asked. Nona, _an innocent girl_ they had cooed, wracking her with guilt. Ren, _your best friend?_ They sounded amused. His betrayed eyes had her on her knees, begging for his forgiveness. And Jonas, _your brother!_ They had sounded almost delighted, enjoying how desperate she was to leave, knowing she never could. Jonas had called out to her, _Alex, Alex!_ But his voice got swept up in the ghosts’. She was glad she didn’t have to hear it.  
  
Once, she woke up and Michael was there. Michael, her dead brother. Her dead, drowned brother. Her brother she had watched drown in terror. Stared at his waterlogged body, unmoving. Frozen in place.  
  
Frozen in time.  
  
He didn’t seem to notice her look of horror at the time, and attributed her confused ramblings and desperate pleas to Jonas to remember something, anything, to a really bad concussion. He had patted her head and retold the night’s events to her and _c’mon Alex, remember now?_  
No, she didn’t. It had never happened. But she smiled and nodded and went oh, some of it is a bit familiar. And Michael gave a pleased smile while Clarissa teased him, and Jonas moved away from her like she had something infectious.  
And that hurt, her brother not knowing her. Her brother not _being_ her brother. Jonas avoided her like the plague for a while after that, only giving her strange looks. Eventually they fell into a comfortable friendship, but nothing close to the bond they had shared on Edwards Island. Before Michael.  
  
And then, she looped. It was gone and Jonas was her weird, awkward step brother again. That was, oh, maybe 12 loops ago? She never wanted to do that again. She loved Michael - _loves_ Michael, but he’s gone. And him being anything other than that is too much for her.  
  
Alex realised she was on the bridge, the river rushing, quickly but calm beneath her. A sprinkle of rain fell on her face and slid down her face like tears. She couldn’t cry. She’d cried her fill. Tears and tears and never ending waterworks.  
Jonas was up ahead, walking towards the cable car. It was already on? No, she had just turned it on. No memory of doing it, like her autopilot had turned off as she stepped onto the bridge. She leaned on the fencing, the rain pouring harder now. Jonas was grumbling something about electrocution. Her eyelids drooped as she listened to the rhythm, relaxing sound of water flowing and rain drops hitting the ground.  
  
 _Tired_ , she thought she heard the ghosts whisper to her.  
  
Tired, she agreed.  
  
 _Over. And. Over. And. Over. Again._  
  
The unending loop.  
  
The sounds of water, Jonas grunting in frustration at the cable car, it all faded away to a white noise. A glitchy noise. A familiar noise.  
  
Her and the ghosts.  
  
Alex and the ghosts.  
  
 _You. Can’t. Leave._  
  
 _It. Doesn’t. Stop._  
  
 _On. And. On. And. On. And. On. And. On. And. On. And. On. A_  
  
On and on and on.  
  
Alex was tired. She knew her friends knew. They started noticing when she drifted off for too long, eyes glazed and far away looks. No jokes, no smiles, just silence from her. That’s not her, they’d think. It’s not her, she would agree. But it is her. It’s the her the 27th Jonas knows.  
And it’s the her the ghosts take pity on. The her they try to relate to, telling her to sit back and relax and take her time because she isn’t going anywhere and they know how she feels. They feel what she feels, enough to break the script. Enough to be almost friendly before they possess her friends again.  
  
 _We know. What you. Feel._  
  
And the 28th loop looms in front of her. It's both too soon and not soon enough. She hasn’t seen her parents in what feels like years. Alex wants nothing more than one of her brothers, Michael, Jonas, to scoop her up in a hug and tell her that it’s okay. It isn’t okay, but they don’t need to know that. They don’t need to know what she knows. She tried to explain it to Jonas once and the loop restarted right there and then. So she watches their ignorant faces, from happy, excited, content, to anxious, scared, horrified. And she just goes through the motions. She keeps going. She’ll rest soon.  
  
She’s rocking against the railing, as if the wind is trying to push her forward. She feels her body go limp, her eyes shut. She’ll let the wind push her forward.  
  
And Alex falls, curling her body up in herself. Falling feels slow, like wading through water. And the wind sounds like voices whispering nothing in her ears. And Jonas’ screams turn into Michael’s desperate splashing. And her body feels as suspended in time as it did then.  
  
She hits the water.  
  
Nothing. Nothing in the dark, nothing in the water. It’s cold, it’s empty, it’s quiet. It blocks out everything. No ghosts, no time loops, only a slipping consciousness. Only silence.  
  
Warm arms around grabbing onto her, hands gripping her tightly. Pulled out of the water that sucked Michael in, that sucked her in. The buzzing of the cable car, the heavy panting of Jonas. The now cool arms place her down on the grass, pushing desperately at her chest.  
Alex gasps. She sucks in air as quickly as she can. Her lungs burn as she rolls over to cough up water. It sputters out of her. She curls up on her side, breathing in air so hard and fast that it almost seems like she’s hyperventilating. Maybe she is. But she can’t breathe and she’s trying to but there’s no air getting to her lungs so she breathes faster and- Strong arms scoop her up. Her head is pressed against his warm chest, under his chin. He wraps his arms around her while hers stay pinned to her sides, muscles too tired to even attempt moving.  
  
“It’s- It’s okay, Alex,” Jonas chokes out. “It’s- You’re okay.”  
  
Alex has cried her fill. Cried enough to start a bottled water company. Cried enough to last a lifetime.  
And she cries again, because she’s in the arms of her brother and she’s _safe_. She’s in the arms of her brother and she’s _home_ for what feels like the first time in years.  
  
She sobs and she shakes and it stings her raw throat but she can’t stop and no, she won’t stop because who knows when the next time she’ll get to do this is. The 27th Jonas doesn’t know her that well yet but she loves him like he’s been her brother all her life.  
  
  
And he’s not Michael, but he’s Jonas, and that’s who she needs right now.


End file.
